Your Dogs Know You Can't Resist Their Puppy Dog Eyes!

Your Dogs Know You Can't Resist Their Puppy Dog Eyes!

Has your dog mastered the art of giving you such cute puppy dog eyes that you just can’t say no to them? What do those eyes mean? Is it just a trick to get food? At the Dog Cognition Center of the University of Portsmouth, a team led by Julianne Kaminsky decided to find out.

The study involved 24 different breeds of dogs considered family dogs. Each dog was given ample time to become accustomed to the environment and the people around them. After that, each dog was led into a specific room. The dogs went through different tests based on four conditions, with the testing person’s face either turned to them or faced away, and each dog’s level of attentiveness and facial expressions were recorded frame-by-frame.

Results clearly showed that dogs used their facial muscles much more when they could see the face of the examining human. When the human’s back was turned, their expressions were less vivid. Most interestingly, these changes remained constant with no variation regardless of whether the testers gave the dogs food or not!

What does the latter result mean? It indicates that when a dog is giving you puppy dog eyes, they probably aren’t trying to manipulate you into giving them food! They’re merely trying to communicate and earn a reaction from you.

Feature Image Source: Pixabay

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